Paleoista Holiday Tip # 12: Planning Portions

What if you’re actually at a Paleo friendly gathering but the host feels compelled to give you double, or even triple the portions of the few dishes she’s created for you to ‘make up’ for the fact that you’re not getting all the variety that the other guests who partake in the non Paleo options receive?

That’s just what happened to one reader who did her due diligence, spoke to the hostess of an upcoming holiday party in advance and explained that she’d discovered that some health issues she’d been having had actually been caused by some of the foods she’d been eating and even offered to bring a few dishes to share.

Fortunately, the hostess was quite receptive,made the reader feel very comfortable and didn’t make a big scene about the fact that there were certain dishes she would be eating, and other she would not.

However, when dessert rolled around, she was served a gigantic portion of a fresh and dried fruit salad with nuts while all the others ate bread pudding.  What was she to do?  Eat more than she even wanted just to avoid the risk of insulting the hostess who’d gone to the trouble of catering to her needs?

Not at all.  

Perhaps one graceful way to handle that situation would be to simply be honest.  Tell the host how touched you are that she went to great lengths to accommodate your food needs but you’re simply too full after all the lovely food she prepared for dinner.

No doubt, it’s still a potentially awkward situation, however, a minute or two of a socially uncomfortable situation is far better than several hours of physical discomfort coming from either over eating or eating too much of even a good thing!